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While all of this is going on, I inch closer to the caviar table, circling inward like water down a drain until I find myself beside Gideon. Our shoulders almost touch as we both pretend to examine the fishy black pearls on silver platters.

“This shit is gross,” I grumble to no one in particular.

Gideon smiles. “I agree,” he responds, his voice softer than I expected. “I hate fish and never eat it. I’m Gideon Vossenberg, by the way.”

“Aurelia Draven.” I offer my hand, the gesture formal and distant, as though we’re truly strangers and not expecting to meet.

His palm is surprisingly calloused for a man who spends his life hacking into things, and his handshake is firm despite the nervous energy radiating from him. “The pleasure is mine,” he says, and there’s a weight to the words. “I’ve been… eager to meet you.”

I lean closer, reaching for a napkin I don’t need. I whisper, “Valentine said you’ve helped me.”

“It was an honor,” he says, gaze fixed on the caviar to avoid drawing attention. His foot taps a rapid rhythm against the marble floor. “Your secrets are safe. Always.”

Before I can respond, his hand moves with surprising quickness, pressing something into my palm—small, light, almost insubstantial. “For luck,” he whispers, then steps away to examine a display of fruits, our interaction done in under a minute.

I close my fingers around the object, careful to keep it concealed as I move toward a less populated corner of the ballroom. Only when I’m certain no eyes are on me, I uncurl my hand to reveal a raven’s feather.

My breath catches, a memory slamming into me. Theodore Martinelli, sprawled on the floor of Emeric’s family vineyard, poison turning his lips blue. The raven’s feather in his breast pocket, a detail I’d noticed but dismissed as unimportant in the chaos.

What does this mean? Did Gideon kill Theodore? Why would Valentine’s hacker take matters into his own hands? And why give me this… token, this confession disguised as a gift?

Confusion twists through me, threading deeper between my veins with each heartbeat. Why is Valentine introducing me to Gideon now, when the most pressing concern should be helping me escape Julian’s grasp?

Questions crowd my throat, pressing against my teeth, desperate for release. Only, no one here wants to give me the answers.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickle, so my gaze sweeps the room instinctively, sensing danger before I can even identify it.

Julian stands near one of the massive floral arrangements, champagne untouched in his hand, his battered face a mask of cold suspicion.

His eyes flick to my hand. To the raven’s feather.

Can he see what it is from that distance?

I slip it into a hidden pocket of my dress. Nothing to see here. Just the Golden One, behaving herself as instructed.

Julian’s gaze remains on me and it feels like it’s crushing me further into the earth with each passing second. Then I spot Lorenzo, also watching me with interested eyes.

Why are these men so fixated on me?

The oppressive weight of the ballroom—the scents of expensive perfumes, the suffocating amount of bodies—all becomes too much. This game is too much. My confusion and sense of helplessness is all too much.

Everything blurs. Valentine’s cryptic instructions to wait. Eleanora finding new friends, moving on while I’ve been drowning. Gideon’s feather burning against my hip. Julian’s eyes tracking my every movement. Too much. Too many pieces to a puzzle I can’t begin to assemble.

I’m drowning in plain sight, and no one can see it happening.

I just need some air. Need to get away from… everything.

My feet carry me through the crowd on instinct alone, weaving between bodies with desperate purpose. The women’s bathroom is thankfully empty when I burst through the door, my reflection in the ornate mirror a stranger’s face—pale, wide-eyed, composure crumbling at the edges.

I lock myself in the furthest stall, pressing my back against the cool tile as my knees finally give way.

I slide to the floor, gold silk pooling around me like spilled champagne, and only then do I allow the tears to come.

They fall hot and silent, leaving trails of mascara down my cheeks.

When I swipe at it and look at the black smudges on my fingers, it makes me think of a time with Adrian.

I had been in the kitchen of the Harrow penthouse—back when I wasn’t trapped and instead chose to hang out there willingly.

I was attempting to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

It was a simple task that shouldn’t have been beyond my capabilities.

But my mind had been elsewhere, consumed with thoughts of Julian and how sinful he looked when I had accidentally walked in on him in the bathroom.

He had pants on but his shirt was off while he styled his hair.

I was lost in the guilt, the confusion, the twisted pleasure of it all—in fantasies of him fucking me in the shower.

I lifted the hot pan from the burner and brought it to a plate, sliding the sandwich off.

When I went to set the pan back on the stove, I didn’t have enough of it on the burner and it started to tip off the stove.

Instinctively, and stupidly, I’d grabbed the sides of the scalding pan with my hands.

The searing pain had been instant and shocking, and I cried out.

I stood there, clutching my wrist, tears streaming down my face from the sharp, throbbing agony in my fingers, when Adrian walked in. For one suspended moment, he froze, taking in the scene—the abandoned sandwich, the smoking pan, my crumpled form.

Then something shifted in his expression. His careful indifference slipped, revealing something raw and real. Concern. Not the fake kind he showed at public events, but genuine worry that softened the hard lines of his face.

“Aurelia,” he’d said, my name flowing gentler than I’d ever heard it from his lips.

He crossed the kitchen in three long strides, taking my injured hand in his with tenderness. Without a word, he led me to the sink, turning on the cold water and guiding my burned skin beneath the stream.

“Hold it there,” he instructed. He disappeared briefly, returning with a first aid kit. He pulled out a bandage, soaked it in cool water, then wrapped it carefully around my hand, his fingers lingering against my wrist where my pulse raced beneath his touch.

What followed was the part I’ve replayed a thousand times since, the moment that never quite fit into the narrative I’d constructed about our relationship.

Adrian stayed with me, one hand on my lower back, rubbing slow, soothing circles as I leaned against the counter.

No accusations about my carelessness, no irritation, no snide comments about my obvious distraction.

Just his presence. Solid and comforting.

We stood that way for a while, neither speaking. I remember thinking how strange it was, that in this quiet moment of pain, I felt closer to him than I had in months of sharing his bed.

Finally, he rubbed his thumb across my cheek, wiping mascara and making his skin black. “Better?” he asked.

I nodded and he kissed me. Then he left the kitchen.

Now, curled on the cold bathroom floor at this idiotic ‘festival,’ I press my palms against my eyes as if I can physically push the memory back into the dark corner of my mind where I’ve imprisoned all such inconvenient truths about Adrian.

Who was he, really?

That question will never have answers. Adrian is gone, and with him, the possibility of understanding what existed between us—what might have grown if given the chance to breathe beyond the toxicity of our circumstances.

All I have left are fragments of rare, unguarded moments when the mask fell away and revealed the man beneath—a man I never truly knew.